The ubiquitous Swiss Army knife was first invented in the late 19th century, but humans have been using and sharing similar multipurpose tools for much, much longer. Sixty-thousand to 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens ventured out of Africa, eventually landing in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. While that migration was not the first, scientists […]
If you think pinning down the position of a black hole sounds complicated, you can imagine how much harder it is to identify one moving 100,000 miles per hour — which makes astronomers’ recent feat so impressive. For the first time ever, data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has allowed scientists to record the mass
Meet Ross and Hugo Turner, a.k.a. The Turner Twins. They’re professional adventurers who’ve rowed across the Atlantic (netting the duo two world records), scaled Mount Elbrus in Russia, and have traveled to four of the world’s Continental Poles of Inaccessibility — by bicycle and paramotor, no less — to list but a few of their
After a devastating fire tore through the 859-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, the sounds of its 10 bronze bells ceased to echo through the city. They’d escaped damage but have been rung only once since — on April 15, 2020, the one-year anniversary of the blaze. Then the chapel returned to silence,
Great teachers have the power to create vivid memories from our youth that we carry with us into adulthood. But one middle school teacher in Montclair, New Jersey, has been using a memory from his own childhood to share an important lesson about empathy and acceptance. When Daniel Gill was 9 and living in New
How One Teacher Uses an Empty Chair as an Inspiring Lesson of Inclusion Continue Reading »
Got a daughter, niece, cousin, or little sister who loves baseball? Thanks to trailblazer Maria Pepe, they can make lifelong memories and forge important bonds while competing in their favorite game as Little League baseball players — an experience that was historically reserved only for boys. In an interview with Today, Pepe, who grew up
Meet Maria Pepe: The Little Leaguer Who Paved the Way for Girls in Baseball Continue Reading »
Rwanda operates a health system that reaches over 90% of its population and has long been a leader in implementing new medical technology. But for years it had a major problem: blood delivery. Most people in the East African country live in rural areas, meaning blood had to travel by road — a long journey
How Drones Have Helped Solve Rwanda’s Blood Delivery Problem Continue Reading »
While it’s often said that not all heroes wear capes, a few in the vicinity of the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England, do wear scuba tanks, as Emma Lyon can attest. On May 7, Lyon was attending a regatta and had been cheering on a local race participant with such enthusiasm that the ring
Divers Rescue Woman’s 100-Year-Old Wedding Ring From River: “A Total Miracle” Continue Reading »
Jim Kitchen dreamt of becoming an astronaut as a child. While in college in the 1980s, he worked selling low-orbit space travel, despite constant ribbing from his friends about the then far-off idea. And when he married his wife, he asked for a prenup with the sole stipulation that he be allowed to go to
Meet the First Man to Visit Every U.N. Recognized Country and Travel to Space Continue Reading »
Frances Connolly can’t get enough of giving. The 55-year-old in Hartlepool, England, won 115 million pounds (about $144 million in USD at the time) in the lottery in 2019, and she’s already given over half of it away to friends, family, and charities. Connolly has set up two organizations in the years since her and
Woman “Addicted” to Giving Back Donates More Than Half of Her Lottery Fortune Continue Reading »
